TOYOTA VISION MULTI-TOUCH WALL

The Fwa TOYOTA VISION MULTI-TOUCH WALL - http://www.thefwa.com/site... June 16 from TheFWA - Comment - Like

“NutriSmart” Concept Promises Better Nutrition through Technology

For his final project at the Royal College of Art's Innovation Design Engineering program, Hannes Harms wonders, "What if there was a way to make food information more visual and track all of our intake? What if there was a way to embed data directly in food?"

His answer: "NutriSmart," a which essentially entails replacing food barcodes with RFIDs, where data—regarding provenance, nutrition, preparation, etc., not to mention allergy information—can be tracked from farm to table.

Video after the jump:

Windows 8 Is Gorgeous, But Is It More Than Just A Shell? (Video)

Yesterday, Microsoft showed off Windows 8 for the first time, and it’s gorgeous (check it out in the video above). It’s also the biggest change to the look and feel of Windows since Windows 95.

Windows 8 is all designed around a touch interface, with tiles replacing icons and swiping replacing drag-’n-drop. Instead of a Start button that pops up at the lower lefthand corner of your screen, you are greeted with a grid of tiles as the new Start screen. The tiles also function as mini-apps, displaying realtime information and updates which might spur someone to launch an app. You can switch quickly between running apps with a flick from the side panel. And these apps can be written in HTML5 and Javascript just like Web apps.

With this new touch user interface, Microsoft is hiding the complexity of Windows, but that complexity still exists underneath. Whether or not this is a flaw or a feature is already being debated. Is Windows 8 as radical a departure as it appears to be for Microsoft, or is it simply a pretty shell? Microsoft, after all, has a legacy to protect and many users will not feel comfortable abandoning the familiar desktop metaphor. So Microsoft is not abandoning its old UI completely. It will still be available to anyone who wants to switch back to that more familiar mode, which still makes sense for most desktop and laptop machines with mice and keyboards.

Microsoft is very much responding to Apple with Windows 8, and they are doing so in a thoughtful way. If the future of computing is all about touch, then Microsoft is more than willing to embrace and extend that future. The issue here is that Microsoft seems to want it both ways. Windows 8 is being designed as a great touch interface, but with the old desktop UI as a fallback.

Contrast that with Apple’s approach, which so far has been to bring touch to new mobile devices (iPads, iPhones, iPods) with iOS, while keeping its desktop OS X operating system separate. Although Apple’s two operating systems may converge over time. We certainly see the beginnings of a transition to a touch interface on MAc desktops and laptops with OS X “Lion.�

So maybe Microsoft is ahead of the curve here by combining desktop and touch into one operating system for all devices spanning desktops to tablets. It will probably want to keep its desktop and phone operating systems separate for a while, but even those overtime will look more and more alike. Windows 8 already borrows some cues from Windows Phone 7, which is also tile-based and fairly elegant.

Yes, Microsoft is playing catch-up. And its chances of dominating the touch era of computing the way it did the desktop era are slim. But this is going to be a long game and it’s still early. Give Microsoft credit for realizing that the game has changed and adjusting its strategy so that it can still be a player.

Interazione che rompe le barriere tra virtuale e reale :-)

 

Un ambient interattivo molto impressionante, sia per l’interazione virtuale, che per quella “reale� a seguire.

Per la raccolta fondi destinati alla costruzione di un ospedale cardiochirurgico per l’infanzia, in Brasile.

Da vedere e prendere nota per copiarlo

 

3D Masterpiece

Polymer Vision’s Rollable Flatscreen

While the Society for Information Display's "Display Week 2011" doesn't sound like the sexiest event, it was at that conference in Los Angeles that a company called Polymer Vision showed off their latest technology: A rollable flatscreen.

Polymer's 6-inch SVGA display is 800x600 pixels and (thus far) just black-and-white, but it can be rolled into a radius of just six millimeters--meaning it would fit around a tube less than a half-inch in diameter. While integration into actual products is presumably a ways off, it's not hard to imagine, say, scroll-shaped iPads in the future.

Europe will presumably get a look at the technology when Polymer Vision travels to LOPE-C, the upcoming Large-area Organic & Printed Electronics Conference, to be held in Frankfurt at the end of June.

via crunchgear

Neurowear

http://neurowear.net/

Smartheart Turns Your Mobile Phone Into A Heart Monitor

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. As this is the case, there are many of us in the U.S. — and across the globe — who have had heart disease or cardiac illnesses affect our lives in many unpleasant ways. Today, thanks to advances in modern technology, we are beginning to see services, devices, and applications that may one day prevent heart attacks and heart-related conditions (currently, 1 American has a heart attack every 34 seconds). SHL Telemedicine, which is bringing personalized health care to mobile, announced today at Disrupt NYC a new medical gadget called “smartheart�. Smartheart is a lightweight personal electrocardiogram (or ECG) that allows you to monitor your heart in realtime.

Using smartheart, within 30 seconds, any end user is able to record a hospital-grade ECG and transmit it to their doctor, cardiologist, or hospital to get a diagnosis in realtime. Those who’ve experienced electrocardiograms at a hospital or doctor’s office know that the process typically involves lying down on a bed, while doctors prod you with multiple sticky monitors, attaching them to different places on the chest. Smartheart, on the other hand, is lighter and sleeker than traditional ECGs, only involves one monitor, and can be strapped around the chest. Smartheart ECGs, as I was lucky enough to demonstrate onstage, can be made standing up.

The accompanying free app, which is available on iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry, connects to the ECG wirelessly, and displays, through a nifty interface, the level of battery power and connectivity. Once the device has been configured with the app, connection happens within seconds. Then, you’re free to begin taking your pulse, so to speak. In as little as 30 seconds, the app will display your results and give you the opportunity to email them directly to your physician. For those who find themselves in harrowing circumstances, the app will immediately identify an irregular or abnormal heart condition and send an alert to the user in realtime.

And the best thing? The device itself will cost $500. That’s less than the price of an iPhone, and generally speaking, the iPhone (itself) can’t save your life. Yet. Further data analysis, reports, and other medical advice will be made available on a subscription basis for what Smartheart VP Shay Leibovitz said will be a low price, “way under $20 a month�, he says.

Now, as someone who had heart surgery at a young age, I am without a doubt biased towards this kind of technology. But, to me, a free application and a lightweight, hospital-grade, and cheap device that can be used by anyone with a smartphone, from anwhere, is pretty cool. Really cool. Not only that, but the potential positive medical effects a device like this could have is dramatic. Considering that Leibovitz says that 50 percent of heart-related deaths happen before one can get to the hospital, preemptive monitoring and treatment can have some amazing life-saving potential.

Would You Like A $49 Electronic College Textbook With Lifetime Updates?

Nature, the folks who brought you the free life sciences learning community Scitable, are today announcing “Principles of Biology�, a college level electronic textbook. Building upon the cross-platform success of Scitable, the new textbook offers a variety of fully interactive features, including quizzes and assessments, an online gradebook for instructors, and more. Perhaps most notable in this era of constant upgrades and in-app purchases is that this text will be continually updated with top-notch content from Nature’s editing team at no additional cost to anyone who has purchased a copy. “Our interactive textbooks, since they are “born digital�, are designed to capitalize to the maximum degree on the progressive possibilities which digital media opens up for the education space: new distribution models, new learning models, new pricing models. Our textbooks are designed to make students active rather than passive learners throughout the learning process,� says Vikram Savkar, SVP & Publishing Director at Nature Publishing Group.

Read more…

The Desperados Experience

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